ability to self-publish and curate your own research, independent of anyone else

ability to make corrections, and publish those corrections, independent of anyone else

ability to follow others' self-published research/corrections and pull it into your own research if you agree

mechanisms that encourage convergence of separate research efforts on the same research topics

Significant advances have been made in the last decade to enable certain aspects of online genealogical research. The contributions of Ancestry and FamilySearch to providing indexed original records should not be underestimated.

The global family tree databases of Ancestry, Geni, FamilySearch, One Great Family, and others are also very significant. The efforts of TNG and PHPgedview are especially significant in the control and latitude that they give to individual contributors in their efforts to self-publish.

However, online is not the same as open. Open means more than just letting the general public search or get a login, it means that the dataset is licensed under an open license, and that this open licensing is adequately encouraged for subsequent contributions.

The ability for collaborative self-publishing is a primary concern that seems only partially implemented at this point in existing tools.

I have had this picture in my head for a while, and it seems the right time to start writing about it and doing something about it.

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Disclosure: I am employed by FamilySearch. The views expressed here are the opinions of John Sumsion and do not necessarily reflect the views of FamilySearch or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.